The Maid of Sker by R.D. Blackmore

There is no need for me to follow all the Crowner's doings, or all that the juries thought and said, which was different altogether from what they meant to think and say. And he found himself bound to have two of them, with first right of inquest to the baby because of the stamp on his pinafore. And here I was, foreman of the jury, with fifteenpence for my services, and would gladly have served on the other jury after walking all that way, but was disabled for doing so, and only got ninepence for testimony. With that, however, I need not meddle, as everyone knows all about it; only, to make clear all that happened, and, indeed, to clear myself, I am forced to put before you all that we did about that baby, as fully and emphatically as the state of our doings upon that occasion permitted me to remember it.

For the Coroner sat at the head of the table, in the great parlour of the house; and the dead child came in on his board, and we all regarded him carefully, especially heeding his coronet mark, and then set him by the window. A fine young boy enough to look at, about the age of our Bardie, and might have been her twin-brother, as everybody vowed he was, only his face was bolder and stronger, and his nose quite different, and altogether a brave young chap, instead of funny and delicate. All this, however, might well have come from knocking about in the sea so much.